Indeed. I'm not a "Jesus never existed" guy, I tend to think the existence of a radical preacher dude being the source of the cult makes more sense that not. But there is that lack of evidence that hangs out there which gives people a reason to doubt his existence. Alexander, otoh, we have lots of evidence for, so doubting his existence is really unreasonable. Unless, of course, you're DOC and require his signature...
Actually, the point isn't even just whether he existed or not. Though I'll freely admit to not believing he existed any more than Joseph Smith's golden tablets existed.
But we have a lack of evidence or, really, even any other primary sources than Paul (the gospels and Acts are written _much_ later and got additions over the next couple of centuries even on top of that) and Paul kinda doesn't go much into who Jesus was, where was he from, where _did_ he get crucified, when, etc. Which, even if you decide that a less spectacular version of Jesus must have existed, leaves us without any reliable information as to _who_ he was.
I mean, ok, let's say I believe every word that Paul says, and even that there actually was a sect in Damascus that gave him those scriptures. And they actually all saw that guy in hallucinations telling them that he overcome death. (Not only Paul doesn't mention a bodily resurrection, but it seems to be a late addition even to Mark, probably the earliest fanfic... err... gospel.)
It's not even a very exciting and unusual story, as basically we have a guy with a common name killed by the Romans via a relatively common execution for rebellious non-citizens. It's about as unusual as saying that there was a guy called Moshe gassed by the nazis in WW2. Not to sound insensitive, but there were thousands fitting that description.
Umm, ok, but now what? Who was that Jesus guy?
Obviously he must have been a fairly well known guy if so many people hallucinated about him. (Or so Paul claims, but I just decided to take Paul's word for it.) But for what? Paul doesn't say.
For all we know, he could have been a fairly nasty character, as opposed to some nice idealistic rabbi preaching comfort for the oppressed. He could have been some kind of rebel (those got crucified usually), or some local equivalent of the sicarii terrorists, or a bandit, or really whatever.
The gospels aren't much help, because they're written by idiots claiming impossible things, and occasionally not even knowing the basic geography of the place, and generally making it very clear that they're _not_ eyewitnesses. E.g., Mark's idiotic account of dressing a freshly scourged criminal in purple just for lulz, would have been both a way to blow an exorbitant sum of money for that lulz, and _illegal_.
But more importantly: which gospels? The 4 chosen by the end of the 4'th century as official, are chosen so more because they fit the culture and philosophy of their target demographic, than because of anything else. There is no research they did into which is the historical account.
And when you look at some of the others, they're all over the place. E.g., you have a gnostic Jesus in the Gospel of Judas and a few others. (In fact, probably the gospels about a gnostic Jesus outnumber the others.)
And then come such abominations as, for example, the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, where Jesus is a thoroughly unpleasant character. He curses a kid to wither and die for just splashing with a stick in a puddle, and lo and behold, the child dies. Next page he curses a boy to die (and he does) for just bumping into him on the street. Next page sees the citizens, understandably miffed, go to Joseph to complain about Jesus killing children, and for that Jesus curses them all to be instantly struck blind.
It's not quite the image of a nice, turn-the-other-cheek, hippie rabbi, is it?
At least two different non-canon gospels see him deal with dragons.
One presents a scene of Jesus exorcising Satan from a girl that was visited by Satan in the shape of a dragon. And let's just say that I hope to hell that that's not a dramatized version of a real event, because it boils down to wrapping the girl's head with a cloth and setting it on fire. (Of course in the gospel version, lo, big miracle, the girl is OK afterwards, only Satan is hurt by the fire. But such exorcism rituals exist to this day, and they're a lot more harmful and often even lethal to the victim. The pretense that it's really the possessing demon being hurt, see, is also quite common to this day.)
So which gospels have the right Jesus, if any?
Which Jesus did exist? Nice traveling rabbi, or gnostic magician, or vengeful and short-tempered child-murderer, or idiot exorcist who probably deserved a nailing for that kinda stuff, or what?
